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All-New PowerBooks, Web Browser Featured at Macworld
The 17" model is 1440x900 resolution, 16:10 aspect ratio, G4/1GHz, SuperDrive, GeForce4 440 Go/64MB, and all the same ports, with the addition of line in and FireWire 800 (in addition to FireWire 400). It is less than 1" thin, and 6.8 lbs., and has fiber-optic lightning for the keyboard activated by ambient light sensors. It will be available next month for $3,300.
The 12" version is 4.6 lbs., and is smaller than the iBook in every dimension. It's 1024x768, G4/867, GeForce4 420 Go/32MB, and is AirPort-ready ($99 extra). It is $1,800 for a combo drive model, $2,000 for a SuperDrive model, and will be available in two weeks.
Both models sport the new AirPort Extreme (802.11g), which is 54Mbps, up from the 11Mbps of AirPort (802.11b). The base stations and clients are fully compatible with the old AirPort, handle 50 users, and support both wireless bridging (to extend the range by adding more stations) and can act as a USB printer server.
Jobs also introduced Safari, a new Mac OS X browser based on the KHTML rendering engine from KDE (and Apple will publish changes they've made to it). There's nothing especially great about it -- it's a web browser -- except that, unlike most other browsers, it is expected to be fast and work properly, as well as be fully integrated into Mac OS X. The web is a killer app, but pretty much all web browsers suck; Apple hopes to give us something that doesn't suck in Safari. It is a free download for the beta, starting today. This story was posted using Safari. W00p.
iPhoto 2 has been revamped, with iTunes integration (access to playlists, tracks, even searching) for slide shows; one-click enhance of photos; a retouch brush; archiving to CD/DVD; and more. iMovie 3 has added chapters, the "Ken Burns Effect" (panning through still images), and precise audio editing. iDVD 3 has added a ton of quite cool themes, which will look great the first few times you see them.
They are -- along with iTunes -- bundled with all new Macs beginning January 25 as "iLife". All but iDVD will be freely available online, contrary to previously published reports. The entire bundle of four apps will be available for retail purchase for $50.
For sale today at $99 is another new app, Keynote, which is the presentation software Jobs has been using for over a year for his own presentations. It includes all sorts of flashy features like textures and Quartz-powered 3D transitions, and can import and export PowerPoint, as well as export to PDF and QuickTime. It has an open file format (using XML).
Jobs also introduced Final Cut Express, a stripped-down version of Final Cut Pro, for $300, and noted other prominent third-party software recently released for Mac OS X: QuickBooks, Director, and DigiDesign Pro Tools (later this month). He noted that the number of native apps for Mac OS X jumped from 2,000 to 5,000 in 2002.
Meanwhile, the number of users of the OS went from 1.2 million to 5 million last year, and he expects the number to jump to 9 or 10 million in 2003.
Update: 01/07 19:37 GMT by Jamie (also posted with Safari): And thanks to the several Slashdot readers who pointed out a great but unannounced product: X11 (aka the X Windows System) for Mac OS X. It's in Public Beta right now. Great to see this, an Apple-supported X is greatly needed. I don't know why Jobs didn't at least mention this, it would have gotten quite the round of applause I'm sure.
Looks strange to me. Is this really the KDE HTML rendering engine or is it Gecko? It certainly identifies itself as Netscape 5...
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Check out this clip from their new (Konq-based) web browser... they're using Slashdot as an example website!l
http://www.apple.com/safari/theater/bookmarks.htm
good, but no tabbed browsing.
It seems apple is now pushing it's own X11 implementation at: http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/
Not announced, but still quite interesting. Its X11, but with all the OS X look on the windows (shadows, genie, etc)
Fascinating.
:)
It's officially the 'year of the notebook' - so that's how Apple is coping with slow processors then!
Very nice new powerbooks though - especially the 17-incher, with glowing keyboards and ambient light detection. It also adjusts the screen brightness, mmmm
Safari, the web browser, is actually based of KHTML - KDE's HTML library. Not bad, especially seeing as they're going to give the 'orders of magnitude' speedups back in the way of the source code.
And digs at Quark. And the rumors sites were practically all wrong. Hah. Best keynote in ages.
Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" whilst looking for a rock
I just wanted to mention that after using Safari for a few minutes now, it appears to be amazing. The browser is so much faster it is like a hardware upgrade. On my 500mhz iBook I have never been able to scroll smoothly through pages on any browser. Now scrolling is almost perfectly smooth! Great job with the browser Apple!
(Remember that laptop CPUs typically don't run as fast as desktop equivalents - especially when on battery. Most OSX laptops are as fast as PC equivalents. So the CPU gap doesn't apply)
I can't wait to download the new iApps (sorry, iLife) as well.
My favorite part of the keynote:
Gigantic screen behind Steve Job reads:
"Open Source
We think it's great"
-Spyky
Why KHTML rather than Gecko, I wonder?
.5 yet? Whoowee! 6mb download and faster than IE in every way in Win2000)
Of course if they were both perfectly compliant, it wouldn't matter, but neither one is.
Gecko has a larger install base with existing Netscape, Moz, Chameleon, Galeon, and Phoenix installs, and is more likely, with AOL converts, to have a larger market share and have more 'feature-rich' pages designed to render properly in it. Both are cross-platform.
(BTW, have you used Phoenix
The only thing I can figure out here is that Steve really likes KDE or he really doesn't like the MPL. Maybe he's paranoid about helping Steve Case any more than need be by speeding Moz/Netscape acceptance.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Oh, my spalling does suck, but nevermind about that :)
The keyboard design is brilliant (there's a pun there, I think). The only thing missing is a little camera somewhere to enable Video Conferencing (which I use a lot with all my friends and some of my clients). But no complaints.
I probrably don't have anything smart to say right now... too busy drooling after having watched the entire live stream of the keynote. But if anyone wants to throw links to great places new Mac ownsers can go to (such as http://fink.sourceforge.net/ ) I'd LOVE to see your thoughts, links, suggestions, etc.
Okay, I'm sure some poster will happily link to prior art, but that keyboard is fucking cool.
... fibre optic light strips ... the Christians are going to have a whole other sexuality to denounce this year, cause between the aluminum casing, the 1440x990 screen, this just might be the year where people are finally caught literally humping their powerbooks. Look at those pics, I know I would!
Automagically adjusting itself depending on the ambient light
"Old man yells at systemd"
"Jobs also introduced Safari, a new Mac OS X browser based on the KHTML rendering engine from KDE "
I can't believe they would not adopt Chimera, especially with David Hyatt now working at Apple. No offense to KDE which I hold oh so dear over any other WM system, but Gecko is just a better engine. Its truly cross platform, has a huge amount of momentum behind it, and AOL would essentially be doing R&D for free for Apple. Not to even mention the fact the Netscape/Moz has much much better industry suport,a ton of addons and a much larger user base. If this is true I'd just call the move foolish.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
first impressions:
.... much better than backlighting!
* no tabbed browsing - wtf?
* no way to import bookmarks - got a hundred in chimera, time to poke around and see if I can figure a way to do it
* nice default fonts
* respects internet preferences like homepage
* nice brused look
* looks clean
17" AlBook:
* what's up with the keyboard. they're using the same sized keyboard for the 12" and 17" models. wtf? the 17" has so much more space, and a bigger keyboard would be a great feature
The writeup forgot to mention that both Safari and Keynote are open source.
The HTML rendering portion of Safari is open source. Keynote is not -- it's a commercial product like DVD Studio, Final Cut Pro, MacOS X, and just about everything else Apple does.
dennis
I watched the Quicktime keynote with great interst, hoping that Jobs would finally introduce a 4-pound notebook. I've been waiting for one for a while, so I'm really excited that Apple finally introduced one!
Unfortunately, however, the notebook doesn't include DVI-out support, so my monitor would fall back to VGA mode if I tried to use the notebook with it. Does anyone know if Apple or a third party plans to offer a PC Card with DVI support? Margi had one, but it's only 4MB... not quite enough for this particular monitor.
Also, one thing Apple keeps failing to address is the #1 reason I haven't switched to a Mac. Steve, where are the software trade-in incentives? I own Photoshop 6 and 7, Dreamweaver MX, and Microsoft Office XP for the PC. What on Earth is keeping Apple and/or other vendors from offering trade-in incentives? Why can I not trade in my two boxed Photoshop-for-PC copies and receive Photoshop 7 for Mac OS X? The same goes for Dreamweaver MX. The cost to move to a Mac is almost doubled by the $1500 worth of software that I already have for my PC.
Here's hoping Apple will start to address this issue, especially since the platform is geared toward video developers and graphic designers -- two markets whose people invest heavily in expensive software.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
Uhh... by my count, there were only 3 Macworld keynotes in 2002.
And here I thought only Microsoft tested their products three times before they shipped.
Actually, it bridges the gap between the iBook quite nicely. I've talked to a couple people about this before, that would really like the features of the powerbook, but couldn't spend $2400+ on one, but the iBook didn't have enough horsepower for their liking... sometimes size is a considerations as well. all and all, the market for it may not be huge, but it definitely helps the people caught in between the old iBook/Powerbook lineups
my last sig was too controversial... now, a new and improved useless sig!
Use the "Bug" button! Go to the Safari page, and submit a bug, saying you want tabs. Make it known to Apple that this is something people REALLY want.
"Year of the notebook"
Addresses two key issues with Apple. First is slow cpu's. cpu speed isn't as big of a deal with laptop users, so the ghz gap isn't as pronounced here. Second, and most important, laptops have much higher margins than desktops. Apple already sells a higher percentage of laptops, this does nothing but help the bottom line and if they continue, the bottom line will still look good (even if market share drops).
Most dissapointing
No advancment on the ghz front. I just said that it doesn't matter _as_much_, but it's still dissapointing that Apple continues to lag here.
New FireWire connector. I know that this might not be Apples fault, but yet another connector type for 800Gb FireWire, ugh. Yeah yeah, an adapters available, but couldn't IEEE figure out a way to make the two compatable?
Most "interesting"
Safari. How does this fit into the big picture. Does Safari really make the Mac a sweeter deal for those who were fence sitting (or firmly on the other side)? Does what Apple gets from it outweigh the development costs of it? Is this another sign that Apple is distancing themselves from Microsoft? Now with Safari, Office is the only thing left that Apple has a dependency on M$.
Most likely to go "cube"
The 12" PowerBook. Yes portability is good, but does it sell in enough numbers to keep it alive. Will people want a G4 bad enough to pay the extra for the 12" PB vs the iBook? Subnotes/small notes are notoriously hard to sell, but I guess it does plug a hole in the Apple notebook strategy.
mee too! on a power book. pages just explode onto the screen. No borders on the window and a very svelt tool bar mean maximum screen real estate for windows. Also a nice snap-back tool for going back ward to a marked point at a deep web site. sort of like a temporary bookmark.
its released under GPL not the apple open source lic.
It seems to be missing some sort of activity indicator (like the flashing N in netscape or the flashing lizard or the flashing E. This is a bit annoying since you dont know if you should click again or not when a link is sluggish
privacy freeks may note one missing cookie setting. it has
Always/Never/ and ONLY FROM SITES I NAVIGATE TOO (NO AD COOKIES). But it is missing an "always ask" setting. Not that I will miss it, but the paranoid may care.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Another great feature.... Safari blocks popups just as easily as Mozilla. Just click Safari->Block pop-up Windows !!! Nice feature. This was a great Mac World!
Acknowledgments
Portions of this Apple Software may utilize the following copyrighted material, the use of which is hereby acknowledged.
Lars Knoll, et al. ( khtml ) [snip]
Lucent Technologies ( dtoa.cpp ) [snip]
Netscape Communications Corporation ( arena files ) [snip]
Harri Porten, et al. ( kjs - JavaScriptCore based on kjs ) [snip]
University of Cambridge ( PCRE ) [snip]
(Copy of my post to Macslash.org, where I post as MadMac)
This was one of the most entertaining keynotes I've seen in a long time out of Apple. This is also the first one (for me anyway) which wasn't clogged to death when you tried to watch it via live QT stream.
Like the new Notebook, though its pricy. But it also doubles as a surfboard in a pinch!
Now the big big big thing was Steve Jobs standing behind the huge words "Open Source is Good" or something like that. That Apple is releasing the browser code improvements (a years effort) back into the open source community and announcing that Open Source is good is just amazing! It is such a wonderful difference from Microsoft's constant "Open source is the tool of the devil" rants. I think this will help attract more geeks to Apple as well as make open source developers more open to writing software for the Macintosh.
Another thing that was neat was that Keynote uses open standards and that Jobs even verbally invited 3rd party developers to take advantage of that. In a way, I actually wonder if Apple is developing a radical corporate strategy which involves a sense of responsibility to the computer industry as a whole. By releaseing open source changes back into the world as well as using open standards in their document formats, Apple opens the door for other companies to create new tools and new markets alongside Apple. In this way, Apple is *helping* the economy and the computer industry as a whole by creating both new products as well as opportunities for others to share in the wealth of the market those new products exist in. It will be very interesting to see if Apple works on spreadsheets or word processing next. A beefed up Appleworks or Claris works would be nice!
Gripes:
Having to pay $49 to get iDVD3 (even though other iApps come along they are also freely available) is rediculous.
Keynote is expensive, nice, but still expensive and on par with Microsoft's rediculous prices for their own office apps.
Apple should have offered the iApps along with Keynote for like $79 or the iApps by themselves for $29. That would have made it worth the money to get the iApps. Jobs even said the only reason they don't offer iDVD for free is that it is so huge in size. Given that admission, I will feel no guilt at all when I download it from elsewhere or get it from a friend's new Mac.
But that is the only real gripe I had, so over all a very favorable keynote!
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
In the software section of the website detailing the new, tiny Powerbook, IE is off of OS X's Dock and Safari is on. Keynote is a PowerPoint replacement made by Apple.
What you should be wondering is not just whether Apple is trying to compete with Microsoft (and to end its dependence on MS for such a key piece of its OS as the browser) but if Microsoft has started warning Apple that it's going to leave. IE is still listed on the same software page, which doesn't mention Safari by name. There's some posturing going on here, and I'm not real sure what the motives are.
Fwiw, been testing Safari. Super-fast with a clean interface, but doesn't do nearly as good/mature a job displaying hard core dhtml as Mozilla, and therefore Chimera. Good freshman effort, but Apple better not stop at version 1.0.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Has it occured to anyone else that the new 12" Powerbook is, for all practical purposes, a G4 iBook? What does this say about the future of the iBook? Will Apple continue having two different laptop form factors in the future? While it certainly helps Apple to have a entry-level $999 iBook, especially for the education market, I wouldn't be suprised if by next year there's only one Apple laptop "style", with all price ranges contained within it.
After poking around in the preferences, I noticed you can turn Rendzevous bookmarks on -- meaning you'll automatically discover web services running on your LAN. And bookmark 'em. Cool enough by itself.
I then clicked on the "About Rendezvous" button underneath, and found the page has been updated with a tantalizing little treat (in addition to pledges of support from game and printer developers):
Yep. You'll be able to serve your iTunes collection to your TiVo. I'm assuming with playlists and all.
Happy speculating...
I think it's great that he's chosen to go with KHTML instead of Gecko? (For reference, I use Moz, installing Phoenix right now, and I use WindowMaker, not KDE). If they went with Gecko, it would go against everything the Mozilla Project stands for.
Mozilla is created as an alternative. It was not created to be the ONLY alternative. And assuming the world domination thing happens, IE dies off, we would have the same thing, but called Mozilla and hidden behind different 'skins' (front-end like Phoenix, Galeon, Chimera, Etc). I think those projects are great, but choice is what the entire Free Software movement is about.
I choose to run WindowMaker. I choose to use FreeBSD. I can choose to release my projects as either GPL or BSD, or even LGPL, or any of the other licenses. I choose to use an x86 based platform.
Why not let Apple choose KHTML? If we wake up one day and find that only Gecko is out there, IE died and Konqueror is "that other browser" (Like Opera and Mozilla are considered today, in the mainstream, although both are gaining considerable acceptance), where would we have gotten? Except for the fact it's open source, it'll be no different than IE.
Just my 2c.
Quite some while ago, I remember a little amusement about the idea of Apple registering a trademark for the word "Keynote". Interesting to see how that played out. The (I thought) highly credible vPod rumors turned out to be bogus, and the Powerbook line got one of the most surprising revampings imaginable. Not one but two new models, and no displacement of the current line. And not a desktop enhancement to be found. Could this be a transition point for Apple to move into a more portable-based business model in years to come?
What really struck me as interesting, particularly with the quiet reaction to it, is that Apple seems to have declared war on Microsoft. They praised MS Office with one breath, then bitchslapped Gates and his cronies with a double whammy of a new browser and a competitor to Powerpoint. I'm predicting now, a monster update to AppleWorks within the next two Macworlds.
The one thing that really dissappoints me is the incompatibility of Airport Extreme with the current 15" Powerbooks. I hadn't expected they'd deliver a blow like this to Powerbook owners so soon after a revision (867/1Ghz models), and was hopeful for an 802.11g transition that I could replace my standard Airport card with.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Wow, fiber optic lightning?
1.21 giggawatts!!
You should try using your damaged memory a little more, then you'd notice that the price of the iBooks has dropped by $100-$200!
There is no "finder-level hardware graphics acceleration". You're probably thinking about Quartz Extreme, which is window compositing-level hardware graphics acceleration. And guess what: the Radeon 7500 (either with 16MB or 32MB) in the iBooks supports the required features just fine.
Donate free food here
Well, time will tell, but I think the new 12" PowerBook will do fabulously well. In addition to the faster G4, you get 802.11g vs 802.11b, bluetooth, S-video and VGA out, a bigger hard disk that's ATA/100, more memory, faster graphics, a lighter notebook, and QuickBooks bundled. Oddly, you don't get Firewire800. In my world, the total speed bump (which I'm guessing is substantial) is worth $300, 802.11g is worth $50, the bigger faster disk is $50 (it's a PAIN to swap an iBook disk), the memory is worth $30, and the S-video/VGA out (with true dual display) is worth $100. I personally don't care about QuickBooks. So, I think this will definitely be worth it to some people even before you get to better looks and snob appeal, although the 12 inch iBook is a beautiful product in its own right (I own one :-)). The odd computers out in this case are, I think, the 14.1" iBooks.
Babar
As for your 486 running faster than an 8600, do you mean for general OS performance, or for actual comparable applications? My 486 would barely run a graphics program, which the 8600s I've used handle passably (not wonderfully, but better). So at that point, it's subjective word-against-word.
In any case, that's all old news. The reason today's Macs excite us (or me, anyway) is that they offer very spiffy design on very solid, quick performance. You say Macs are not "faster, cheaper, more stable systems." If, for such systems, you mean Linux, I can't argue with you. I would claim, though, that the newest Macs match or best top-flight Windows systems for performance (thanks to G4/Velocity) and stability (thanks to OS X's BSD core). Then, what you get for the extra "expense" is a tastefully designed, fully integrated yet completely flexible computer and GUI. To re-iterate, over Windows, you gain even more stability, possibly some speed, and a full set of command line tools. Over Linux/other *NIXes, you get a snappy, consistent GUI and access to more applications.
Personally, I use all three, depending on the task. I mostly just find Macs a nicer environment to work in.
How many mice does it take to make 12 pounds of mouse nuts? And why are people eating them?
It is a trick to get slashdot to slashdot itself!!!
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
I really hope there are some happy Mac users out right now. This MacWorld has been a really awesome one and I hope the trend continues with the third party developers going buck wild with some new OSX apps.
Safari is a neat browser and of the stuff released today was one thing that really suprised me. I didn't figure Apple would want to enter the browser "war" so I sort of wrote off them ever making a browser. It made no sense to go after that essentially profitless market when there are so many alternatives already entrenched. After using Safari a bit I realized Apple didn't enter the browser war, they just built a system on the fallout ridden wastes of the browser war. The gadgetry MS has been trying to add to IE in the form of auction watches and whatnot are handled by Sherlock 3, Safari doesn't need them. It also doesn't need some entirely new plugin architecture because Quicktime supports a huge swath of file formats and media types that are readily found on the web. All Apple really had to do was build an interface for a third party's HTML renderer which I think they've done pretty well. As an added bonus it also lets Apple ship consumer systems with entirely first party software and still have it be functional for the typical Mac neophyte. It's also really sweet seeing the GPL is a product like Safari.
I've been waiting for Apple to move to 802.11g for a while now, I figured they would have done so way earlier than now. Had they done this they might have ended up screwed over by a standards committee had anything changed in the spec between when they released it and the still pending ratification date. Keeping that in mind waiting until the spec's finality was imminent makes a lot of sense. It might take me a while to move up to Airport Extreme (as I just bought 802.11.b equipment) but when I end up with a new Powerbook it will be awesome that it is there.
The Powerbooks facinated me, I'm really glad I've held off buying a new laptop. I had figured the Powerbooks would be the next candidates for an upgrade but never did I think the upgrades would look like they do. I think the 12" Powerbook is an excellent idea and I hope to have one ASAP. While the iBook is a nice system it falls short for anyone wanting a good dose of processing power (read gaming performance) in a portable system. Adding Radeons to the iBooks helped a bit but a "scorching" 49fps in Quake 3 is a yawner (though Apple needs to learn if you want better frame rates you can down the resolution or drop the color depth for some pretty decent playability). I think for most things the 12" Powerbook is going to end up making x86 laptops look pretty crappy, especially subnotebooks. Most of the smaller systems you can find run on hobbled Celerons or Crusoes and cost as much if not more as the new PB. Maybe Apple will get more of a leg up in the portable market.
Between an iCal release that works, a new browser, and an official X11 system that works with Quartz, I have a lot to do on my Powerbook. Maybe one of the first things will be to order a new one.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
A cursory look at a few of my web pages confirmed that Safari is not a Gecko browser. It does not support negative margin-top CSS values, and does not recognize DIV {overflow:auto;}. Chimera (and all Gecko browsers) handle all of these correctly.
The choice of this K stuff over Chimera/Gecko is puzzling, but the performance is there.
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
Actually, the address bar seems to act as an activity indicator. The text in the address bar gets blocked (as though selected) from left to right like a progress bar as the page loads. The progress starts with "http://" section turning blue (progress can stall here for some time, however.
Using the app's compass icon and spinning the needles around might be a appropriate image, though.
Abandoning all common sense, I just installed Apple's X11 over the top of fink. Both want to dump stuff in /usr/X11R6, but since fink uses /sw for almost everything else I figured it would be ok, which it is so far. Upon firing up X11.app, it tried to read my .xinitrc file, which I have set up in fink to start Gnome with the sawfish window manager. It came up fine, but I wanted to use Apple's window manager that's integrated with the Dock, so I commented out my .xinitrc and restarted X11. This gave me an xterm window with no WM, oops. Fortunately I found "quartz-wm" installed in /usr/X11R6/bin and running that gave me a window manager with Aqua titlebars and buttons, and it even minimizes to the dock exactly like native OS X apps. I then renamed ~/.xinitrc so it wouldn't be found at all, and now when I start X11.app I get an xterm with quartz-wm already running, which is what I want. I've only tried a couple of X (er, X11) apps from my fink installation, but so far they've all worked flawlessly.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
I do seem to recall the end of 2002
Really? Then you didn't drink enough.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
Safari apparently does not support self-signed certs. Mozilla and IE show a dialog offering to use or reject the cert, but Safari just bails. Try https://www.codefuries.com/
I guess this must be Apple's fault, not KHTML's. I known Konq works on the above url.
If you use X11 under Fink, you can do this:
dpkg -r --force-depends xfree86-base
dpkg -r --force-depends xfree86-base-shlibs
[install the SDK from apple - http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/ ]
[install the user install from apple - http://www.apple.com/macosx/x11/download/ ]
fink install system-xfree86
(courtesy of Ben Hines on the fink-devel list)
You may have to manually edit your $HOME/.xinitrc file to add the "exec quartz-wm" line in place of any other "exec" lines.
Other than that, it works great for me. The new Quartz WM is good.
With the release of Safari and Keynote, apple has fired a salvo across MS's bow. These two apps help to decrease Apple's dependence on MS for the Browser (a key component) and to a lesser extent, on powerpoint. This is, imo, a goo thing. However, every mac user still has to pay a tribute to MS in the form of Office.
OpenOffice isnt seen as a viable replacement among mac users because it uses X11, and looks decidedly un-maclike. With this new release of X11, thats fixed. Apple can now bundle open office with OS X, and they won't need to spend hundreds of man hours porting it to run under Aqua.
The combination of OpenOffice running under apples X11 implementation, Safari, and Keynote could be just the thing that apple uses to decrease (and perhaps ultimatley do away with altogether) its dependence on MS. And that, I think, is a Good Thing.
---
Look out honey cause I'm usin' technology
Ain't got time to make no apologies
The issue isn't that Apple can choose KHTML, it's more a case of why.
Other people have pointed out the corporate aspects, that Apple might not like the fact that AOL has tight control over the direction that Mozilla is headed simply by sheer weight of numbers of developers. I'd like to bring up a different reason: have you actually had a look at the Gecko source recently? It has turned into a bloated, crufty mess with many peculiar hacks to satisfy Mozilla's cross-platform nature (it seems NSPR/XPCOM is not quite abstracted enough as portability code has crept in elsewhere) and to work around deficiencies in the W3C specifications. For a browser that was started again from scratch because it was felt the previous version (remember the Netscape 5.0 code dump? ugh) was way too bloated and crufty to continue work on it, that's very sad.
In contrast, KHTML has stayed pretty lean, partly because I think Qt is a better GUI platform abstraction than NSPR/XPCOM, and partly because it has had to due to the tiny size of the development team: with only a handful of people contributing code, the code needs to be as clean and obvious as is humanly possible simply for the project to survive. It will be interesting to see whether KHTML can continue to be so lean with the addition of a bunch of full-time Apple developers onto the team.
For all the bitching about KHTML's CSS compliance, I probably ought to point out that whilst it's not necessarily quite as good as Gecko (although I have a nice testcase using floats that Gecko has never got right but KHTML aces) it's (in my tests) better at CSS than any version of IE or Opera so far.
It's been fashionable to diss anything other than Gecko since Mozilla hit 1.0. I think that needs to stop: not everyone likes Gecko, both users and developers, and it certainly is not inherently superior, despite its current marginal lead in standards compliance (and lets not forget how it now trails in performance). Open Source does not need to get behind one browser, in exactly the same way that it doesn't need to get behind one desktop either, or one word processor or one toolkit. Choice is good, and rabid Mozilla fans should be especially conscious of this, because Moz would be toast otherwise thanks to IE.
It's also tragic that I only feel confident enough to say this without getting modded down into oblivion in an article that is so obviously a loss for Gecko/Mozilla, but hey, that's Slashdot for you.
Happy Konqueror user since 2000 - yes, I remember when it could barely render Slashdot correctly - and chuffed to bits that Apple agrees with his choice. Nice to be vindicated sometimes.
> Popup killer: Mozilla. Instant bookmark categorizing: Phoenix. Google toolbar: Phoenix. Dragging bookmarks around: IE.
Uhm, if you think Mozilla invented the Popup killer, Phoenix invented instant bookmark categorizing, or that Phoenix invented the google toolbar, you're sadly mistaken.
... because it can help extend battery life, big time. Those of you with power-hungry x86 laptop CPUs may scoff at this, but my experience with my 500 MHz iBook has been that I can run it for a little over three hours with the display at full brightness, and a little over four hours with the display at its dimmest (and if you're on an airplane at night, that's actually a practical way to hack). This means the display accounts for about 25-30% of the power consumption. Anything that automatically makes the display draw an appropriate amount of power might extend my battery life half an hour or more.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
My point is, that by promoting the ideas and benefits of Open Source to Graphic Artists, Travelling Business People, "Creative Types" and the Casual Mac User(tm), Apple is doing more to promote open source among non-technical people than any other company out there - at least any other company my grandmother has heard of, anyway.
Here's a screen shot:
Apple Keynote Screen Shot
are you kidding me?!?!
... for a cool 2.1K you can sweeten the deal w/ a superdrive. take it home and hook it up to my bad ass 17" CRT Apple Studio Display for serious design work; its small enough to fit under the monitor. add my Pro keyboard and Graphire, and i've got something worlds better than what i have now with built in bluetooth and a 54Mbps AirPort card. and its so freaking small and light that it isn't something i have to decide whether or not i take it with me.
i want one i want one i want one i want one
it just comes with me.
now i'm sorry i bought that palm! this would pretty much replace it. i have no need for a slim-down under-powered pocket pc when i can have something like this so gosh-darned small.
He just posted a few comments.
Timeo idiotikOS et dona ferentes
So when I found that Apple had come out with X11 for OS X, the first thing I thought was "So what? That's already been done. Somewhere along the way (probably while waiting for the new X11's "Optimizing" process to finish), I went over to the OroborOSX site to see if they had mentioned Apple's new X11, and that was when I remembered what's so cool about (most of) the open source community.
They didn't bash it. They didn't knock it. They didn't even complain about it. They said something like, "How does this affect our project? We don't know. Download it. Check it out. Don't forget to back up the X11 directories beforehand, just in case." And they linked to a message forum thread on their site that had been created to talk about this new product from Apple. Even in the forum, there was very little criticism of Apple's X11 product, and everything critical they had to say was constructive.
Even though this product could completely obliterate the need for their software, they were open to an alternative. They didn't go into FUD mode and immediately issue press releases bashing the "competition".
One could argue that they have no reason to get upset or concerned, because they were giving their software away anyway. No money to be made or lost, right? So take your ball and go home. Not so. You can't tell me there's no pride in Open Source. These people found a void and filled it, and the void could very well be filled AGAIN by the very people who caused the void in the first place. It would be very understandable for the OroborOSX team to get a little miffed.
Hats off to these guys for representing the best of the Open Source Community, which most often really DOES seem to be about ensuring that we all have the very best software that we can get, no matter who makes it.
Now I'll check to see if my "optimization" is done yet, and I'll begin my little evaluation of Apple's new effort. But I will be very careful to REMEMBER who has already been here and to not forget the work that they have done. Now that they have been here, the bar has been RAISED for Apple and they will have to produce quality software. This is a great role for Open Source software, if nothing else.
Cheers,
RP
I've been playing with Safari, and I just found out that when you connect to an FTP site through it, it uses the built-in finder FTP support and mounts the site on the Desktop. pretty slick if you ask me! If this has been posted already, I'm sorry, I didn't feel like reading through all 800+ previous posts.
today is spelling optional day.
dfj225 wrote:
> Hummm...everyone on earth complained about IE being
> fully integrated into Windows, but when Apple gets the
> bright idea to do it with their next browser, people seem
> to think its a good idea.
Safari is integrated into OS X the same way any well written Mac program is.
Otherwise, Safari is just a file. A special file called a package, but from the user's point of view, just a file. Try this little exercise:
Drag the Safari application to the Trash. Now double-click on the Trash, and drag Safari back out of the Trash window. Repeat as many times as necessary.
Now try this on Windows. Well, actually, you can't. But you can hide it on Windows XP (if you haven't already hidden five of your special applications). This is thanks to a settlement in an antitrust case that dragged on for years. In order to get this wonderful feature (of hiding, not uninstalling, the apps you didn't want in the first place), you have to download Service Pack 1 (it's huge), and agree that Microsoft can access all your data and install anything it wants to on your computer. Great, now you don't have to look at the IE icon any more!
If that does not make the difference obvious, consider that Microsoft stated in a court of law that their operating system would cease to function if the browser were uninstalled. Did OS X cease to function when you dragged the Safari icon to the Trash?
The Microsoft case also involved special antitrust rules that only apply to mean bullies who have a monopoly and abuse it. These rules don't apply to Apple. Even if they did, Apple makes it easy for you to chuck their browser and set up another one of your choosing as the default.
Thanks to Apple's little present to the KHTML/Konqueror team, Konqueror and derivatives will share the speediness and improvements Safari made to the core engine. This will benefit Linux (and any other OS Konqueror runs on).
Do you really see Microsoft doing anything that would help Linux, especially if it involved the GPL?
"Your way of thinking is completely different from mine!"
Shinoda, "Godzilla 2000 Millennium" (Japanese version)
Look isn't the point.
Look and feel and expected behavior and interoperability are the point.
Ever tried to use an app that emulates your OS's native widgets with skins? It doesn't look right, it ignores global color and font settings, it ignores UI guidelines, it behaves differently when you drag the scrollbars, it uses its own oddball keystroke commands, you can't drag-n-drop to or from it... bleh.